Ow ow ow pain ow

And ugh, solpadeine tastes foul.

Somehow, driving home last night around 10.45, I managed to pull something in my neck. Or push it. Whatever -- I can no longer turn my head more than a fraction of a degree to the right without pain. In fact, having it slightly to the left is the most comfortable position.

Still, after a restless night it gave me the opportunity for a little DIY sensory deprivation. A good hot bath, with all but my face submerged so that the warmth could reach the afflicted area. Having your ears underwater is just weird. Every glug and gurgle of your internal system -- and there's a lot of them, before breakfast -- is magnified out of proportion. Even the ones you can't actually feel happen. Strange whoops and howls and rattles trail off into the distance, like the cries of the night wildlife in a low budget drama set in Africa or some exotic far off planet. And at one point there was a distinct knocking, like the little man who lives under my bath was rapping on the ceiling and asking me to keep the noise down. Then I remembered I don't as far as I know have a little man who lives under my bath and I put it down to sleep deprived hallucination.

This happens just as the mouth ulcer that was bugging me for most of last week -- at the corner of my lips on the left, just where the canines meet -- goes down. How easily we take for granted a body without pain ...